i heard a lot of congratulations to one another between paul ryan and patty murray. and optimism that this could herald in many a new era, at least over the next two years, of bipartisanship, where they can start to address the larger, root causes. host: what does the agreement do to the sequester budget cuts? >> for the next two years, the sequester would be alleviated and instead of going in the new year to a $967 billion budget for fiscal year 2014, it will actually raise it to just over $1 trillion, $1.012 trillion, to be specific. and then the following year it will be bumped up just a little bit more to $1.014 trillion. so that will give everybody a little bit of breathing room as they say, to work on appropriations bills, to work on budgets and to work on potential changes to entitlements. >> what kind of negotiations led up to this agreement and who were the major players? >> i think clearly paul ryan, the budget committee chairman in the house, and patty murray, the budget committee chairwoman in the senate, were the main two players here. but i wouldn't dis